


Distance and Dance

by fabfemmeboy



Series: Sincere Baked Goods [9]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 06:57:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13071537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabfemmeboy/pseuds/fabfemmeboy
Summary: This wasn't his prom. In a way, it was better - the food was less rubbery and he didn't have to worry that some bully would decide to recreate his least favourite scene from one of his favourite tv shows.





	Distance and Dance

Kurt couldn't remember the last time he stood still, let alone the last time he'd sat down that didn't involve frantically fixing seating charts that had been inexplicably ruined.  
  
His dad and Carole's decision to plan a wedding in a matter of weeks instead of months - or years - had been made clearly in the interest of love but not practicality. Hadn't they ever watched the wedding channel? Even "Say Yes to the Dress"? Didn't they  _know_  the kind of time that a dream wedding - even a second wedding - took to plan?   
  
Of course he'd offered his services. If makeovers were like crack to him, wedding planning was like cocaine: the same idea, but harder to find and infinitely more expensive.  
  
And also of course, they had been incredibly uncooperative. He wasn't sure why Carole objected to white doves or what precisely his father's hatred of an ascot instead of a regular tie was about (it wasn't as if his dad ever wore either one voluntarily!), but in the end he'd managed to pull together what he felt was a reasonably extravagant and stylish wedding in less than a month without giving his father a second heart attack from the budget. It wasn't nearly what he would have created in an ideal world, but he supposed it would suffice.   
  
If only things could have gone off without a hitch.  
  
The caterer being 24 servings short (somehow "plus twelve for the glee club" became "twelve fewer plates because they're the entertainment) seemed small compared to the flower debacle, then Carole tried to get her hair styled and the usual stylist wasn't in and the replacement did something with the colour that turned it way too orange...it got fixed in plenty of time but meant missing a cake testing session, so Kurt had to send Finn who didn't bother to pay attention to which combinations he was eating ("Dude! They just kept giving me cake, I must've had like fifty of those little sample things.").  
  
And then the seating chart.  
  
Kurt could only assume he'd decided to rearrange it while he was literally asleep because that was the only way things could have gotten  _that_  screwed up. He changed it back in time, but it just took so much time and effort and energy...which hadn't been a problem at the time, but now that he'd finally stopped moving and was able to just relax and watch the festivities, fatigue was beginning to set in.  
  
It was worth it, he concluded. Carole looked radiant, and his dad...  
  
Burt Hummel was not a particularly effusive or demonstrative guy with his emotions. He did better than most of his counterparts in town, but he was still deep down a midwestern man which meant he didn't do a lot of smiling.  
  
But that right there? That was practically a  _grin_  as he danced with his new wife.  
  
So why wasn't Kurt all that happy as he surveyed the scene?  
  
His work here was done; he'd set up the happy couple, given his blessing to the continued union even after the unfortunate basement incident and the subsequent fifteen or so times Finn made a homophobic ass of himself, he'd planned the wedding, executed the wedding, and fixed every snafu along the way. Everyone  _else_  seemed happy - even Finn, who had been the most reluctant about the relationship from the beginning and almost gotten worse over time, was happily dancing with Rachel. Apparently they were back to happy-couple status now that Finn had stopped being an ass about Puck. So his work really was done.  
  
It was strange; he never managed to feel as much like an outsider as he did when staring at a sea of straight couples dancing. It shouldn't have been quite so off-putting, considering he'd spent a decent portion of high school trying to get to his locker while jocks and Cheerios sucked face in front of it. He'd been to a few school dances - generally because Mercedes or Tina insisted he go so they wouldn't be stuck standing by themselves - and had watched the parade of high school couples in and out of Breadstix on any given weekend. None of them made him feel quite as much like an outsider as standing off to the side and watching the dance floor.  
  
Maybe it was the whole wedding thing. The knowledge that the law actively prohibited him from enjoying something like this for himself, that more than 2/3 of Ohioans had decided he was too deviant to be entitled to the kind of happiness he saw on his Dad's face...it was hard not to get a little sad and bitter about it.  
  
Or maybe he just hadn't had enough sleep all week. He always got increasingly melancholy and snarky when that happened.  
  
Now that he had stopped racing around, the fatigue of the insane wedding planning finally started to hit him. Caffeine, he decided, was the only solution until he could get a day's rest. Unfortunately that probably wouldn't be until after Sectionals at this rate. Drawing in a deep breath, he strode over to the bar to get a diet pop; he much preferred Shirley Temples but Ginger Ale wouldn't help keep him awake.   
  
When Puck sidled up beside him, Kurt quirked an eyebrow in his direction and waited to see which of the many spirits his mohawked boyfriend would try to con the bartender into serving him. He suspected his dad had threatened the bartender with grievous bodily harm if he didn't card every person who didn't look over 30 thanks to the number of high school students in attendance, but Puck did have a way of conning adults into forgetting he wasn't meant to do whatever it was he was doing.  
  
The request for booze never came. Instead, he heard Puck ask, "Y'okay?"  
  
"Hm?" Kurt asked as he took a long sip of the diet coke and waited for the caffeine to set in.  
  
"You're fine with all this?"  
  
"Sure," he replied, mostly convincingly. He turned his back to the bar, watching his dad dance with Carole, and Puck did the same. "Look how happy he is. And after the year he's had...and the decade before that...he deserves to be happy."  
  
"She and Finn are cool with you now?"  
  
That was the million-dollar question, wasn't it? He and Finn had finally settled into a mostly-neutral coexistence, which was more functional than their previous mutual avoidance, so he couldn't complain too much. The subtle (and not-so-subtle) digs at him and creeped-out looks had stopped, or at least slowed to a point where it was no worse than what any other weird little brother would get. Nevermind that he acted much older than Finn probably ever would; the guy had him beat by four months and a grade in school and took that distinction  _very_  seriously.  
  
As for he and Carole...  
  
He would be lying if he said he hadn't hoped that setting up the parents would bring him a mother figure in the process. He knew no one could ever replace his mom, but he had done his level best to try and bring out Carole's potential in the area. At the very least someone he could bond with over things his dad and Finn didn't understand. No luck there; she didn't know any of his Breakfast at Tiffanys references and her taste in music was much closer to Finn's than his own. While he'd succeeded in helping her create a few "date night" looks and had managed to get her to agree to a suitable wedding dress instead of something that involved hideous 80s lace...  
  
She had this way of looking at him like she found his eccentricities vaguely cute but mostly  _strange_. She didn't direct hostility at him or anything - that was reserved for Puck - but it still wasn't anything like what he'd hoped for.  
  
Most of the time he felt like the family was three-and-one. They all got each other and he was still left out. Unlike he and his dad, where they had their deal that neither would try to change the other, it was a lot harder once the balance shifted. When three people were interested in one thing, or wanted one thing for dinner, or opted for one game on game night, it wasn't nearly so easy to suggest compromise.   
  
"It's fine," Kurt replied calmly. "An adjustment, but that's to be expected, right?"  
  
"I guess," Puck shrugged. He wouldn't know - not like his mom had even brought anyone home, let alone been serious about them. She'd kind of taken up the whole 'men are inherently selfish and unreliable, and you better not turn out to be one of them, Noah!' mantle instead, and work kept her busy anyway. "So are you and Finn seriously getting the house to yourself for a week?"  
  
"Just under. They wanted to be back for Sectionals, so they'll be gone five days."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yes. I think deciding whose colours to wear will end up being the first big test of the marriage; it's turning into the OSU-Michigan game." Not that Kurt knew anything about football, but he did know that at least one Saturday a year (apparently twice a year now, something about a big ten that was now two small sixes?) he was prohibited from wearing blue because of that particular game. Kind of like he knew that Duke was a name never to be spoken because of its pure evilness, like Voldemort. "We may have to come to a truce and have them both wear red."   
  
"Is Finn gonna freak out on you if you win?"  
  
"I don't know. Maybe," Kurt replied, then added, "Will you?"  
  
Puck shrugged. "Got used to losing when Coach Tanaka was around," he offered noncommittally. Yeah, he'd be pissed if they lost, especially to a bunch of prep school boys, but it wasn't like he was gonna refuse to speak to Kurt over it. Not like the guy had defected or pulled a Jesse or committed espionage or something. Well, not against them, anyway.  
  
The music changed to something upbeat and old that Puck didn't recognize. "You picked this one?" he asked. It was a safe bet since the song definitely sounded earlier than anything Finn (and therefore Carole) listened to, and he couldn't picture Burt Hummel as a closet 50s girl-group fan.  
  
Kurt nodded. "Lover's Concerto. Even if it is shamelessly stolen from Bach."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Minuet in G Major."  
  
Mercedes appeared seemingly out of nowhere and grabbed Kurt's hand. "C'mon - you've been running around all day. We're getting you on that dance floor," she declared. When his feeble protests were ignored, he pressed his drink into Puck's hand for safekeeping and allowed Mercedes to drag him off. Not like he had much of a choice.  
  
Puck wasn't sure he'd ever stop finding it kind of funny how much of a spaz Kurt was when he danced. The dude was all put-together and projected this whole air of 'I'm better than you' - even now to some extent, at least when other people were around - and picked up on choreography faster than most people in the club, but tell him to dance without steps laid out for him and he either flailed around or broke into the one and only dance he knew by heart: that really gay dance he tried to teach the football team, with the hand twisting.   
  
Kurt always had a lot of hand-twisting when he danced.  
  
He wasn't sure when he started thinking it was kind of endearing instead of really lame. Not like he'd admit that to anyone - he had airs of his own to project, he had a rep to maintain, but the weird little twist thing Kurt was doing with Mercedes while Quinn and Tina tried to imitate him was kind of...  
  
Okay, fine. It was cute.  
  
The song was too short, like most old songs seemed in comparison to their more modern counterparts, and Kurt made a beeline off the dance floor as "Unchained Melody" started to play. The groups on the dance floor separated, mingled, split into pairs. He took his drink back from Puck with a small grateful smile then turned his attention to the swaying couples. Rachel, who hadn't let Finn more than an arms' length away from her all night except for during his fumbling but sweet toast to the happy couple, was nestled against Finn's chest which Kurt supposed was probably better for her neck than craning up to look at him all night. Quinn was rolling her eyes at something Sam was saying, but her feigned annoyance wasn't fooling anyone - she'd fallen in love with an enormous geek and was just going to have to live with it. But the best by far had to be Tina and Mike, who got so wrapped up in their dancing that Mike kept accidentally spinning Tina into people. Poor guy wasn't used to dancing in crowded spaces.   
  
Puck didn't care what everyone else was doing; he was watching Kurt. The perfect porcelain mask of pride in a wedding well done and happiness for the newly-wed couple couldn't conceal his wistful expression.  
  
He shouldn't have been surprised, really. As much as the guy tried to pretend he was above all that stuff, and even though he hadn't yet started pestering Puck to be more... _boyfriendy_  or whatever - and Puck appreciated that...this was one of those times he had a sinking suspicion Kurt was more like some of the girls with the romance crap.  
  
All that made sense.  
  
What  _didn't_  make sense to Puck was why he wanted to ask Kurt to dance with him.  
  
He didn't get it. He didn't particularly like dancing, he actively disliked anything that would make people go "awwww" if they saw it. And yet.  
  
Maybe it was about being seen in public with the person he was spending almost every day making out with. Or maybe it was that thing he still wasn't sure how to put words on yet. That aching, nagging feeling he got when Kurt wasn't near him - like he missed him or something even though the guy was just at school and they'd see each other in a couple hours. The twisting sensation in the pit of his stomach he'd gotten when he walked out of the choir room after he couldn't say the words and thought his serenade had failed. That thing that he wasn't sure was actually love but felt really crappy. Whatever that feeling was, that  _had_  to be the reason he wanted to do ridiculous things like slow dance with Kurt in front of a giant crowd of people.  
  
If it was love, he'd know it, right? He'd known it with Quinn after Beth was born - at least, he thought so. But this felt different. It felt...clingier, and he fucking hated that. Besides, he'd loved other people before; his sister, his mom...until a year ago, Finn - in a strictly bros way, no homo or anything (dude would probably freak out at that admission anyway), but he'd totally kill anyone who tried to hurt the guy.   
  
With Kurt it felt different, but just as strong, and he didn't know what the hell to do with that.  
  
So he did the one thing he could put his finger on as wanting to do. He reached over and lightly grabbed Kurt's wrist to pull him out onto the dance floor. Kurt let out a startled breath and narrowly avoided dropping his mostly-empty glass. "What are you doing?" he hissed.  
  
"What's it look like?" Puck replied.  
  
Kurt looked around at the crowd, most of whom he didn't really know. If it were just their friends, that would be one thing; even their friends and the parents wouldn't be so bad, though he knew his father wasn't ready to actually watch his relationship in action (no pun intended) just yet. But they were surrounded by a bunch of middle-aged cowtown Ohioans (with a few Indianans and Kentuckians thrown in for good measure) and the last thing they needed to do was bring that kind of attention on themselves.  
  
This wasn't Ugly Betty, where Justin and the not-quite-cute-enough boyfriend could go dance without anyone harassing them. This wasn't New York; it was Ohio and, like it or not, people were still ignorant. They hadn't done anything daring like hold hands in public yet - they hadn't technically held hands at all, the closest they came was when Finn went off during the disastrous Friday dinner and he just kept clinging to Puck's arm under the table until he practically cut off circulation - and he could only imagine what fun that would be. If he thought he got called a fag a lot at McKinley just walking by himself? There was no telling how much worse it would get when he was actually visibly  _gay_.  
  
As in, not just theatrical. Not just flamboyant. Dating (and having sex with) another man. Guy. Whatever.  
  
The last thing his father needed to deal with was a bunch of his friends coming up and asking if he knew his kid was dancing with that mohawked boy and they knew an excellent church program they could send him to. Weddings were supposed to be about the happy couple. Nothing was meant to steal any more focus off them than absolutely 100% necessary. And just like he wouldn't wear white or a fabulous scene-stealing hat, dancing with a boy - no matter how hot said boy looked in his suit - in the middle of the crowded dance floor was definitely not something appropriate for the occasion.   
  
"Over here," Kurt urged as he led Puck back off the floor and over to the side, kind of almost hidden by the DJ booth. Puck raised an eyebrow as if to say 'we're back to this shit?' and Kurt didn't have the words to explain to him why it had to be this way. He tried to say something but kept getting stuck, and Puck didn't push him on it.  
  
"I dunno how this works," Puck said candidly, kind of looking Kurt up and down, hand still gently around Kurt's wrist. To be honest, if Kurt were a girl right now he still wouldn't know exactly what to do - he'd danced with Santana before, when he got dragged to Homecoming his freshman year, but that mostly consisted of her grinding against him and him grabbing her ass. That probably wasn't appropriate in front of Kurt's dad.  
  
In truth, Kurt didn't know either. He had grown up watching movies with all kinds of straight couples dancing - everything from Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip and now an unhealthy amount of Dancing with the Stars (if only to mock it), and while he usually took the girl part when reenacting any of those, there was still a difference. Standard straight teenage slow-dancing, with his arms around Puck's neck while Puck's arms were at his waist, seemed...strange. When it came to two men dancing, he had exactly two reference points: Queer as Folk's prom scene, which he loved only as long as he could forget what happened immediately thereafter, and the wedding scene in Ugly Betty. Neither of them seemed to give him a clear answer on what his left arm should do, but they did give him one big clue.  
  
He drew in a deep breath and took Puck's left hand in his right, holding them to the side, elbows bent. He glanced up to meet Puck's eyes and offered, "Like this."  
  
When Kurt didn't give him further instruction, Puck wrapped his right arm around the small of Kurt's back, drawing him closer. Kurt blushed faintly and rested his free hand on Puck's shoulder. Okay, so he was still in the girl's position, but at least this way he still felt dignified and less like he was just keeping his hands out of the way so he could let a guy grab his butt which, from his limited observation of high school dances, appeared to be the sole rationale for the slow-dance-sway position.  
  
Puck wasn't nearly as clumsy as Kurt expected at this kind of thing. Obviously the guy had some rhythm...but so did Finn and his new stepbrother looked like he was going to crush Rachel to death with his feet and ginormously long arms. When it came to dancing in glee club, Puck had always had a decent amount of the natural coolness composure thing going for him unlike a few of the guys, but he certainly wasn't Mike Chang or anything. And Kurt suspected Puck had never slow-danced in his life - at dances he was almost certainly the guy spiking the punch and making out with girls behind the gym.   
  
But somehow Puck wasn't awful at this. There was plenty of eye-rolling, and a look that clearly said "You owe me so big for this" even though he had  _volunteered_ , but Kurt didn't mind. He caught the way Puck looked at him when he thought Kurt's eyes were elsewhere.  
  
He'd grown up on the old romantic movies and Disney princess stories and Broadway scenes of overly dramatic, overly sappy love played for the third balcony. Most of the time he spent telling the protagonists they were out of their minds - his cynical, judgmental streak had grown in early. But there was something magical about dancing scenes. The way the guy looked at the girl, like she was the only thing in the world, the only person in his field of vision even in a crowded dance hall.  
  
He was sure Puck didn't realize that was the look he was giving him. For one thing, he doubted Puck had the same kind of deep and meaningful bond with the "Once Upon a Dream" scene that he did. And Puck was just a kind of naturally intense person, so that had to be why the gaze was as intense as it was. But it made him shiver in the best possible way...which made Puck draw him closer. His breath hitched in his chest as he kept dancing.  
  
It felt like everything was fading around him, making him go all numb and dream-like, and he tried to force himself to concentrate on where they were and what was going on lest he do something stupid like trip over his own feet and slam his forehead into Puck's jaw or something. That would be his luck.  
  
He glanced around as they made a slow circle, and when his gaze found its way to his dad and Carole, he saw his dad staring back at him. Oh, shit. No. No no no - he'd been trying to avoid this. His dad wasn't ready - he'd made very clear when playing detective about the Meat Loaf song that, while he supported the relationship (or at least didn't discourage it), he still wasn't comfortable talking about boys or relationships. That was fine by Kurt - he didn't particularly want to have deep conversations about guys or sex with his father anyway, but his dad should be able to be happy and not uncomfortable-  
  
...His dad was smiling at him. Like he was  _happy_  for him, even if he didn't get it. And he looked proud.  
  
Kurt felt his lower lip start trembling and he tucked his cheek against Puck's shoulder. The 'you did good, kid' look on his dad's face made him almost beam.  
  
As the song faded away, Puck's arm dropped from around Kurt. His hand shifted and Kurt was reluctant to let go, and instead-  
  
No.  
  
Okay, now he was sure he'd lost his mind. Because he swore Puck -  _Puck_  - had laced his fingers through Kurt's.  
  
The moment ended prematurely as Sam came over to drag Puck to settle some argument between him and Artie about something Beiste had said, and Kurt was left staring at his hand in disbelief.  
  
Finn must have finally complained that his feet were tired because he wandered over to the drink table sans Rachel. When Kurt turned to see where she had ended up, he was surprised to find her practically on top of him. He jumped but recovered quickly. "Yes?"  
  
"I saw you dancing," she smiled. He gave her a goodnatured 'yes, and?' look. "You would be very proud of Finn, he didn't even look like he wanted to tell you to stop," she reported proudly.   
  
Kurt still wasn't sure that was an accomplishment worth celebrating, but it was a big step he supposed. Comparatively speaking, he guessed he should be glad his stepbrother was no longer so actively obnoxious that he would contemplate actively discouraging two people from dancing, sad as that was. "Good."  
  
"That should be your song now," she declared.  
  
"I don't think 'our song' should be one that is most famous for playing in a scene during which Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze sculpt clay phalluses," Kurt replied dryly. If he were to pick a song for them, he was fairly certain it would have to be the Simon and Garfunkel. That did kind of start them being... _them_  as opposed to a one-time mistake. He looked across the hall to where Puck was standing and laughing with Sam and Quinn. When he looked down at his drink for a minute, Kurt grinned as it looked like Puck had one long stripe running down him from head to waist - the mohawk, the black tie...  
  
"You love him," Rachel said in a conspiratory tone.  
  
"Yes," Kurt whispered, his gaze not moving.  
  
Her eyes widened; she had expected him to at least deny it or be surprised when she put words to the feeling that was written all over his face. "Have you told him?"  
  
"No," he replied in a stronger voice.  
  
"Why not? Because from the way he looks at you, I think he feels the same-"  
  
"I know," Kurt replied. He'd spent a long time after the whole song incident trying figure out if the reason Puck hadn't sung the lyric was because he didn't feel it or because he felt it and was scared, and the only explanations that made any sense whatsoever required that Puck felt it. For one thing, if Puck didn't love him, at least a little, the guy would have denied it when he stormed into the room and told him he couldn't just walk out when something was hard to say.   
  
The look when they danced confirmed it.   
  
Provided Puck didn't keep using the lack of talking as a way to back out of things, as a way to run away from things that scared him...As long as Puck kept looking at him like that, he didn't care when or if the words were said. He knew - that was more than enough.


End file.
